THE WOUND

Tradition and modernity clash in this Oscar-shortlisted film, an unsettling rite-of-passage story in which competing attitudes toward masculinity and sexuality are exposed. Set in the mountains of South Africa’s Eastern Cape, it centres on the Xhosa tribe’s circumcision ritual ukwaluka, in which young men come of age under the careful watch of their ‘caregivers’. The Wound provides a fascinating insight into Xhosa culture, and is poignant in that the characters will have to return from the wilds to their everyday lives back in the city. The depiction of a gay romance provoked fury in the Xhosa community and a censorship backlash in South Africa.